J3- It's Not Okay!

This past few days I have been surprised by the way the media has handled the story about Ashley Todd, the McCain supporter who said that a black man attacked her for being a McCain supporter.


The media was very good about not running with the story in the sense that they did not make it too much about race, and reports show that police gave Todd a lie test to see if she was lying about her attacker being black. Also, when the media found out that the story was fake, most news outlets were quick to point out how the story played into stereotypes that black men are dangerous.

Remember the case back in the mid-'90s who killed her children and blamed it on a black man? It seems funny how people will link a crime to a black person, and for some reason society will not question it. Maybe it is this class that has made me overly sensitive to the issue, but I think it is still horrid that we connect crimes with people of a certain race. A Middle Easterners are terrorist by stereotype so any story on the news about a person of that decent that is planning an attack must be true. The same goes with Hispanics and petty crimes and drugs. It is amazing how race and crime are so closely connected. As journalist it is our job to not feed into these schools of thought.

If we do, and if we are not aware, then people like Todd will continue to use fake stories about a black man assaulting her knowing perfectly will that the media will not question the race of the attacker.

Listening Post- It's Just A Game!

I walk into War and Pieces the other day only to find the store empty. There are no nerds sitting in the corner playing games and there comic books are not being looked at. After standing confused in the doorway for a few minutes I finally saw a familiar face, it was Sandy. Turns out she is re-doing the floors and instead of shutting down the store, leaving all the people who like to hang out there with no place to go, she rented the empty store next door so they could play there.

I go into the room, which is next door to the comic book store to and see a massive amount of gamers setting up their games. One of these games, War hammer, involves playing with statue like pieces. They are all painted and I noticed that not each one was painted the same. So I asked where they buy them, turns out they buy the pieces online, but the painting on them is all original art work.

I met this kid named Chris who spends his time working on painting the pieces. Shown on the left. He even entries into national contests that judge how well his art work is compared to others. By using special paint, shown on left, and spends hours on a piece that is less than an inch tall. The contest judge these artist on their creativity in their paining. They steal styles from one another and have Web sites that are that teach painters how to get the best color combination when painting. This is one of the things I love about the comic book store, the passion that the regulars have about their games. Chris began his paintings a few years ago as a hobby. He now has people paying him to paint for him. He says that since he has been painting small objects for so long he can now notice details in an object no matter how small it is.


Aside from the interesting game, the room gave me a chance to talk to Sandy for the first time about her store. She began to talk about how amazing owning the store was. So I asked her how she deals with customers who are rude, her reply, in true gamer fashion, was:
"When people come in I treat it like a game. The game is how can I get this person to smile and make their day? I twist the situation to make them happy and they always leave happy. The other day we had this man come in with five kids, and he could not keep them under control. So I brought them a board game and they all sat around playing. Now I have a customer for life."

I love her answer because it embodies the vibe of the store, and the whole gamer community, and that is that everything is a game. Sandy told me how she refuses to let people leave her store unhappy and to be honest, I don't think I have ever seen anyone leave her store unhappy. In the room that we were in everyone was thrilled that they had a place to sit back and play games with their friends.

To most of the people who hang out there going the comic book store is like going to a bar after work. I met a middle school English teacher who likes to come by the store and play games after a day of teaching. He unwinds by playing games and when I got to talking to him I learned that he also got a degree in communications from FAU. Another guy who likes to hang out there after work is nicknamed Skids, and he works at a car repair shop. After a day of working on cars he comes to the store to unwind, sometimes staying there so long that his wife brings him dinner at the store so he could keep playing his games.

By keeping the store open Sandy, in some odd way, was playing her game. She made her regulars happy and she twisted the situation so that whatever happened to her customers at work during the day disappeared when they walked into her store.

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Going to a comic book store has been one of the best experiences of my life. I learned so much about comics and board games, that I am kind of upset that the experince is now over with. I used to walk by War and Pieces without a second thought when I would go to the hookah bar that is right next door to it. Now that I have gone in I have learned a lot about comic books and the nerd lifestyle.

Comic book stories, I have found, are not just a place that people go to relive their childhood by reading about characters they grew up with, although it is for some. For the most part people go to comic book stores to play games. Just like a comic book these games bring people to a whole new realty. The point of a comic book store is to allow people a chance to escape from reality, and to be in an environment where people can let out their inner nerd. I have learned the importance of keeping comics in good condition and that there is a national rating system on how fresh a book is, the best are 10's but most books go to a 9.8 after printing.

To be honest, I am very happy that I went to the comic book store as my post. Now, I know if anything, I have a place I can go to with friendly people that are welcoming and fun for when I do not want to smoke but still want to escape from the world and let my inner nerd out. Looking back, I feel a little silly thinking that all gamers were anti-social people. I am very happy that I got this experince because I have met some amazing people at the comic book store.

We all have our sterotypes within us, and I think that it is not until we get put into a situation where we are out of our place that the best of us comes out. My first time walking into War and Pieces I was scared. I had no idea if I would be welcomed and if I would be shunned for not knowing anything about comic books or games. Now I go into War and Pieces and am greeted with smiles. The people I met there have a genuine sense of honesty about them, and I truly feel blessed to have met everyone there.

If this experince was supposed to open my eyes as a reporter when I meet new people that are different from me, I think I have fully gained this lesson.

J3- Everyone's A Little Bit Racist Sometimes, It Doesn't Mean We Go Around Committing Hate Crimes- Avenue Q

So it's election season, and one of my favorite times of the year because this is the one time of the year were we can make as many generalization about race as we want and justify it with election results. How many times have people in Broward said, "Well Broward is going to the Democrats but you know those Cubans in Miami- they will never vote for anyone who isn't a Republican." Or even, "Well he has a Jewish name, so you know he is going to be all the Jewish votes."

This is all so funny to me because everyone can make as many generalizations as they want during this time of year, which are for the most part untrue. In the article, Deconstructing the Ethnic Vote at the DNC, they make judgments who multiple ethnic groups will vote for this election year. Now I cannot say if they are right or wrong about the Black or Asian voter turn out, but I found what they said about the Muslim vote to lack some vital information.
“While the majority of our voters like Barack Obama, many are also supporting John McCain and the Republicans,” says Muhammad Jehangir-Khan, a reporter for the Dawn, an English-language online publication for Muslim Americans. He goes on to say that "a large number of Pakistani- and Muslim-American voters to back John McCain," and that Pakistani-American voters are beginning to understand who Obama is and his political platform for the American people, most particularly for Muslim Americans.

What struck me as odd about this statement was that it is supposed to be about the Muslim vote yet they only talk about Pakistani voters. The problem with this is that for the most part people from Pakistan are very conservative. This is a country that broke away from India so that they could pratice Islam in a land of their own. Of course they are going to relate better to the Republican platform- as they should- because the Republicans have a strong hold on the religious base on this country and Muslims are included in that.

They really should have either not generalized all Muslims into the same group as Pakistanis or realized that not every member of one race is going to vote a certain way.

I have always found it funny the way that journalist will place an emphasis on race when there really does not need to be one. In this election season we can clearly see the difference between McCain and Obama when it comes to skin tone- it does not need to be pointed out constantly.

Of course these generalizations are not only made during the election season. I is done when journalist use the word inner city, to talk about black people, or soccer mom, to describe a suburban mother. While race can be used incorrectly, according to Handling Race/ethnicity in Descriptions, if done correctly race can be used tastefully and if "done well, reporting on race/ethnicity and race relations can illuminate, offer guidance, even help people heal."

I agree with that statement. I understand that as journalist we tend to drop the ball at times when it comes to race, but there are stories to be told about the subject that do have an impact. As a freelance reporter I did a story a few months ago I did an article about the daughter of the first black doctor in South Florida. Elizabeth Frazier could not speak due to the fact that she is 100 years old, but her family members were proud that they were a part of the history of South Florida. In fact, they made sure that I mentioned this family history in my article. As a result, the story had more of an impact.

Race many not be important when writing about the owner of a restaurant or a crime victim, but it can be important to those we are reporting on when it is a part of a story. There is a huge harm that comes with being too PC in reporting. And this is because to most reporters a story is just a by-line but to those we report it the article really is forever. It is a part of their history and in many cases race is a part of that history. The Frazier family live their lives knowing that their family is a part of the history of South Florida and use that information to impact the lives of others.

I love covering issues of race is that when they are done in a postive manner they can break sterotypes that members of any race are cheap, illegal immigrants, terrorist or lazy. I feel that as a generation, the one I belong to anyway, did not grow up with race as a taboo subject making our interpretation of it different than an older generation. Most of us cannot recall a time when we were judged by the color of our skin on a constant bases. I am not saying that racism does not exist right now, but people are not as open about it as they were 60 years ago. Race is now something that people openly joke about. I personally think it is a good thing that we can laugh at each other for race related issue.

The reason for this being that comedy, if done correctly, can create change and can make people see the sillyness in their prejudges. Look at Chris Rock! Of course, not everything he says is race related, but when he does, it is always insightful and makes people look at the topic in a new light.

_______________________________________________
Overall in this call I have learned a lot about race and the issues that go along with it. As journalist it is important that we be aware of race and the impact that the subject has on our lives. I expected the class to open my eyes to the biases I may have within me, but slowly I have found that I really don't have as many as I thought.
In journalism it is important to be fair when it comes to race, and look at a story in the light that, if you are looking at a racial story, can you go back and say you were fair. Talking to extreme sides and allowing biases to take over can harm any reporter.

I still refuse to believe that it is okay to be too PC though. If I took anything from the class it is that people are people. It is okay to call someone black or Asian if that is what they are. I don't think that it is ever necessary to censor oneself when it comes to talking about others. I feel that as journalist, and non journalist as well, need to embrace the differences within us.

This class has thought me to embrace these difference, and to be honest it took me a while to see the importance of classes such as this one. The other day in the Beacon office we had this one student come in asking for an application. We gave it to him and asked him if he wanted to cover an event on National Coming Out Day. When he found out it was a gay event, he quickly got defensive and refused to do an article on gays.

Maybe hanging out with homosexuals is out of his comfort zone, but as soon as he left the first thing I thought of was, "I really hope he takes this class because he needs to go to a gay listening post."

My favorite song about race related issues, "Everyone's A Little Bit Racist," from the Broadway play Avenue Q.

J3- Laugh a Little

I have confessed my love for witty commercials in another post, but I feel as if I should expand my views on racial commercials.

Racial commercials can be done correctly based on the context that they are placed in, as in the Ramadan commercial. Although some commercials are clearly racist, as seen blow, I feel that it is just as important to hear the response to them from the people who made them before calling something wrong.

Take these commercial that aired during the Super Bowl this year for Sales Genie.


and



Both of these commercials are racist in their own way, and what I found funny about the aftermath was the response from the CEO of InfoUSA in Omaha, the parent of Salesgenie.com, Vinod Gupta. Gupta wrote and developed both of these commercials. This is what he said to the New York Times about the commercials titled, An ad with taking pandas, maybe, but not with Chinese accents.

He said:
“We never thought anyone would be offended, Pandas are Chinese. They don’t speak German.”

Still, “if I offended anybody,” Mr. Gupta said, “believe me, I apologize.”

Mr. Gupta said he planned to keep running the other Salesgenie commercial, featuring an animated salesman named Ramesh who speaks with an Indian or other South Asian accent.

The reason, Mr. Gupta said, was that “more people seem upset about the pandas than Ramesh.”

“People have been making fun of my accent for years,” said Mr. Gupta, who described himself in the interview as half-Indian and half-Jewish. “And I love it.”

I am not going to defend the ads, but I can understand Gupta's reasoning for putting them on air and why he did not find them offensive. When the ads aired no one knew that Gupta had an accent and that he enjoyed the comments people make about it. Viewers did not know that Gupta has a sense of humor about racial jokes. Which may have made a difference in the public response.

People will laugh at racially charged jokes with less guilt if it is told by someone of that race. Blacks can make fun of blacks, Muslims can make terrorist jokes with no problem, Chinese people can make fun of the Chinese and no one cares. The same goes with jokes about accents. If someone with an American accent makes fun of people with Indian accents, it would be considered racist. However, and I am speaking generally here, if someone who has a Persian accent makes fun of those who have an India accent, it is more likely to be accepted. I am sure Gupta thought of his own reaction to these ads before he made these commercials.


To me, the whole controversy about these commercials, along with those shown in class, proves that it is hard not to offend people when it comes to a product that is reaching a mass audience. I was personally never offended by the South Park where they made fun of the Dutch newspaper that shows a photo of The Prophet Mohammad, in fact I do not know any Muslims who did find that episode offensive, but according to someone in class it was offensive to my people. I wish someone would have told me.

Gupta did not see his commercials as racial, and I honestly do not see every Muslim or Persian joke wrong either. Are we wrong for our views, no, they are just opinions, but should we be offended by something just because others are?

I don't know the answer to that.

Listening Post-Marvel, DC, I can't tell.

After spending a lot of time in a comic book store I feel as I should clear up a few myths people have about nerd and comic book stores.

Myth One: Everyone who goes to, and works, at a comic book store knows everything about every comic ever made.

This myth is false by all counts. It is odd, I know, but comic book stores are actually filled with people who know more about games than comic books. I asked one employee the other day if he knew the difference between Marvel and DC comics, and I got a blank stare along with an answer that sounded more like a guess. This is not to say that there is no one in a comic book store that reads comic books, they do read them, it's just that most of them read the newer ones. Not many people are going to know what happened in the first issue of Superman. They will, however, know the best cynical comics about political life or will try their hardest to pretend they know what they are talking about when it comes to comics.

Myth Two: Comics are for children and grown men who want to be kids again.

Yes, comic books are often read by children, but those are not the only people who read them. Many adults read comics, in fact most of the people I see at the store I hang out at are in their 20s. Reading comics together is something that many father and sons do together.But there are mothers will do the same thing. Also, not all adults do not read comics to re-live their childhood. These days there are plenty of comics that have adult content in them, so sadly enough a lot of people read comics because it is a medium for pornography. Army and Love, along with other comics, are set in a modern times and include nude drawings of people and even have sex scenes in them. Comics are certainly not just for kids anymore.

Myth Three: All gamers love to play Dungeons and Dragons.
There are a number of gamers who play D and D but it is not the most popular game. Magic the Gathering is the game that brings most gamers together. From what I am told, no one ever stops playing Magic. The average gamer will start to play the game one day, and then decided to quit a few months or years from the first time they played. But after a while, every players come back to the game.

Myth Four: Everyone who plays Dungeons and Dragons dresses up and gets way into their roles.

Amanda explained D and D to me as something people do to pass the time, and that it is a great way to spend a weekend. She did admit that there are a lot of misconceptions about D and D. In the '80s and early '90s some people thought that it was a game that allowed players to worship the devil. But from what I am told D and D is really just a good way to pass the time, and those sterotypical players who dress in costume and speak in tongues when they play actually represent a small portion of players. According to Amanda there is a nerd hierarchy, and those who get too deeply involved with it are at the bottom of the chain. I have the conversation where Amanda told me about D and D on tape, but my software is currently not working correctly so I could not put the sound up. I am going to continue working on putting it up.

Myth Five:Nerds do not have girl/boyfriends.
This myth cannot farther from the truth. Almost everyone in the comic book store is in a relationship. They do date, and not all nerds are awkward around members of the opposite sex.

Listening Post- Is This What You Call Tact?

I will admit, I got lucky with my listening post. Mainly because the people who work at War and Pieces are very open to this project. The employees and customers are always helpful and will answer any question that I have. They even go out of their way to help me get information for this blog.

The other day I was hanging out and learning about Magic the Gathering from one of the regulars, Russ, when Amanda, one of the employees, took me away from my lesson to show me an article. It was a summary of a paper a student from MIT wrote about tact filters and how most gamers lack one.

According to the article a lack of a tact filter is one of the main differences with gamers and "normal people," or non- gamers. The idea behind this theory is that gamers, or nerds, and "normal people," tend to have different upbringings. "Normal people" grow up hearing things like, "if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all," from their parents. While gamers, who are often made fun, grow up hearing something different. They often hear "they're just saying those mean things because they are jealous," and "they don't mean it." As a result "normal people" tend to have more tact when speaking and gamers do not. They tend to be more blunt and their words often come off harsher than they expect.

So I began to ask around if the gamers if they agreed with the paper. All but one agreed that gamers tend to be a little more blunt than non-gamers when they speak to each other. The one who did not agree said that gamers feel stronger and more comfortable around other gamers, and with those numbers comes safety. He told me that gamers can make fun of non-gamers when alone and tend to let their guards down more, but made it clear that gamers are normally shy when not in packs.

However, it was not his reaction that is not what I found amusing. It was the fact that after allowing me to record them talk about racial issues, about comic books, politics and almost every other topic, this was the one discussion that no one wanted to be on the record. They did not even allow me to write down their responses. I asked the six or seven people I spoke to why I was not allowed to record their reactions and none had an answer, just a very blunt, "no, don't record this."

J3-Press TV... the most trusted name in news?

Since my family came to this country my mom would always buy Persian magazines from an Arab grocery store that we go to. My favorite of these magazine that she buys is called Pardis, which I cannot find an link to. I cannot read a word of Farsi, but I love reading this magazine because when you flip it over it is written in English.
I think that ethnic news outlets are essential for foreigner. When I read newspapers covering Iranian issues I get to learn about different Iranians in this country and their accomplishments. Something that I truly enjoy because I sometimes forget that there are others Iranians in the U.S. I remember being able to read the letter that Sean Penn wrote about after he made his trip there in the newspaper and got to read the reaction to it from the Iranian community. These newspaper allow me to connect better with my culture, and that is just in print! The downside to these these newspapers is that they tend to focus more on profiles and less on hard news.

To me foreign television is probably the most important outlet for ethnic groups to get their news in this country. There is this relatively new international Persian news branch called Press TV that is my favorite place to get news from Iran and to get their perceptive on world affairs.





I like this network because everything is in English, with sub titles in both English and Farsi. The reporting wonderful and unlike CNN, and other 24 hour news outlets, there are no big graphics or transitions that make no sense - just hard news.They have a branch in Washington D.C., therefore they do a great job covering U.S. affairs in addition to those affecting the Middle East and the rest of the world. I am not saying that this is the perfect news outlet, but I prefer getting my news as oppose to other Persian outlets. Sure, everyone on this network has a slight accent and as you may be able tell with the film clips, but they clearly have a commitment to tell news stories that are important to the global community.